Abbie, Could you please post exactly what is being considered for the
TC to review as a committee? Thanks, Elysa
At 05:15 PM 4/19/2007, James Bryce Clark wrote:
> Lysa, I am concerned that we may not be able to give official
> consent to this *unreviewed* proposal this fast. Management of the
> submission is in the consortium management's hands, not just the
> TC, in order to assure that we follow our rules, and maintain
> OASIS' interests in its collaborations with other SDOs.
> Whatever the proposal's merit, there's a general need to
> maintain parallel uniformity across organizations. OASIS
> submissions to ISO and ITU invariably have included the following
> conditions, so that cross-compatibility is not broken:
> 1. Adopted OASIS Standards are submitted for approval "as is",
> that is, to be voted up or down without change.
> 2. Comments and proposals for change from the approving
> organization and most welcome, but must be brought back to the
> originating OASIS for discussion.
> 3. Participating OASIS TCs commit to review, consider and
> resolve the proposals for change.
> 4. Any mutually agreed changes must be re-approved as errata or
> OASIS Standards (generally) before resubmission to the approving organization.
> 5. Generally there is an arranged method for resolving any
> proposed variances.
>
> While the new proposed schema from ITU may be informally
> acceptable to the TC, at first glance, step 4 above normally would
> require that the TC official approve additions or changes either as
> official errata (requiring 15 day public review, under section 3.5
> of the TC Process), a Committee Specification (requiring 60 day
> public review etc) or an OASIS Standard. That would assure, among
> other things, that the TC and its broader user constituencies had
> some minimal opportunity to *review* the proposed AS1 representation.
>
> If we do otherwise, and welcome sudden changes to our submissions
> outside of our arranged process, it both bends our own rules, and
> encourages our collaborating organizations to fork the standards we submit.
> Adopting a "second alternative" side-by-side standard from ITU,
> as they've most recently suggested, probably is a good faith
> attempt to handle the same material in a more harmless manner.
> However, it still fundamentally acts like a forking of the work. I
> can imagine many other "supplements" proposed at the last minute
> that might detract significantly from the OASIS work ... and as I
> understand that TC has not really even reviewed this one. Also,
> significantly, I do not know if the AS1 submission is *available*
> to OASIS to be contributed to *us* on the TC's applicable
> terms. That would be an essential element to any future coordination.
> Abbie, do you really think it would be safe to do otherwise? If
> there is a second, shadow standard, described as related to CAP by
> ITU, but not by OASIS (whatever its merit), would this not confuse users?
>
> Like Art, who wrote to the TC list several days ago about this, I
> am pleased that the ITU community wants to donate AS1 "code" to the
> project. We encourage the TC to let ITU know that it welcomes this
> development. But this proposal should be handled within the
> context of he review and approval steps we use to ensure
> transparency and quality assurance.
> It's my current feeling that we should communicate with SG17, and
> our representatives there, and ask that they not enact an
> unreviewed document that is stated to be related to our submission
> until our TC has a chance properly to process it. However, I
> understand that we want to cooperative as best as possible with ITU
> and its submitters, and would appreciate your feedback on these views.
>
> Kind regards JBC
>
>~ James Bryce Clark
>~ Director of Standards Development, OASIS
>~ jamie.clark@oasis-open.org
>